yeah consolidation of your information onto an ID card sounds like a good thing.
I am all for increased efficiency and reduction in waste paper etc which may outweight any concerns I have.

My concerns are really concerns of the repercussions of abuse of this card.

who decides what info should go on the card,
what about credit rating etc?
what are the repercussions if your card and ID is stolen?

A bank card is fine, but if it is stolen it is just one bank account on it- what if an ID card held every account plus passwords to other things, other very sensitive data about you, your past,etc. It could grind your life to a halt until it was sorted out.
as an example :
a friend of mine- She was in marks, and she wanted to buy food for the weekend cos they had absolutelty nothing in the house.

She went to pay for it with her bank card.
It was refused, even though she knew she had plenty of money in the account.

After a long time of talking to the manager and the credit folk on the phone she left with no food.
So she went to the bank to find out what was happening- luckily there was a bank open on a saturday!!
The bank said , sorry we can see you have money in your account but we cant give you any money at all until monday becuase that is when we can contact the card company to get it sorted.

So the upshot of it was, she could not access HER money and could not buy food for the weekend.
She asked the bank
"so, are you telling me that I will not be able to buy any food? We are going to have to starve till monday? " and the bank said sorry but YES!


Now, how would this translate to an ID card. could these sort of problems exist with such a card?

If a card were to be issued it should be done over a long test time.

It should also not be compulsory to carry, nor should you be penalised for not having one.
Just like forcing OAPs to open bank accounts to get their pension, we should not be forced to have an ID card to life our life as we see fit.


Having said that, I'd consider one if my concerns were shown to be not an issue.

H